The Shell Covenant refinery is up for sale and no one is bidding. So do you walk away or use it for another purpose. Shell is looking at another use.
Royal Dutch Shell is considering converting its shuttered crude oil refinery near Convent into an alternative fuel manufacturing facility. “Given increasing customer demand for low-carbon fuels, we now view Convent as well-positioned to support Shell’s plans for growth in this area while delivering value to shareholders,” said Curtis Smith, spokesperson with Shell. Shell put the 240,000 barrel refinery which straddles Ascension and St. James parishes up for sale in mid-2020 but never found a buyer. The company rebuffed an offer several months ago from a startup business seeking to restart the refinery. Now the company is mulling the possibility of producing low-carbon alternative fuels instead of regular gasoline, diesel and jet fuel but has yet to make a final investment decision, said Huibert Vigeveno, downstream director at Shell.
theadvocate.com
The plant is shut down and many jobs were lost. Opening to another use might bring some of them back.
Since Convent was closed and 700 workers alongside 400 contractors were laid off the company assessed its options for the 900 acre site. Shell decided to shut down the refinery because it sought to consolidate its refinery footprint and focus on sites integrated with chemical complexes. The Convent refinery was not operational when Hurricane Ida hit in late August but had minor damages. The company told the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality it expected to have repairs completed between one to three months.
Will this cut emissions? How many workers will be there? What alternative fuels? Many questions to be answered in the future.
